Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative motor system disorder characterized by uncontrollable tremors in various parts of the body, especially the arms and legs, as well as poor balance and coordination of movements.
In the United States, about 1 million people live with Parkinson’s disease, and approximately 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, according to data from the U.S. National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
SPARX (Study in Parkinson Disease of Exercise)
A Phase II clinical trial called Parkinson’s Disease Study (SPARX) was recently conducted by researchers from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, and the University of Colorado in Denver.
Their findings suggest that high-intensity physical exercise is beneficial for people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease as it can delay the progression of motor-related symptoms.
If you have Parkinson’s disease and want to delay symptom progression, you need to exercise three times a week at a heart rate between 80% and 85% of your maximum. It’s that simple.
The study’s lead author is Dr. Daniel Corcos, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, and the findings were published in JAMA Neurology.
Early Intervention Can Delay Symptoms
The authors cite previous research showing that drugs used to treat Parkinson’s tend to be less effective over time and expose people to side effects.
For this reason, they say, it’s important to identify effective alternative treatments that do not involve drug administration.
In Phase II of the current randomized clinical trial, Dr. Corcos and his team worked with 128 participants aged between 40 and 80.
Participants were recruited from various institutions and medical centers in three states (Colorado, Illinois, and Pennsylvania).
Who Participated in the Study
The institutions included Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, the University of Colorado in Denver, and the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
All participants were still in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease and were not taking medication for the symptoms of this disease at the time of the study, as Dr. Corcos suggests:
The earlier you intervene in the disease, the more likely you are to prevent disease progression.
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How Does Physical Activity Affect the Course of Parkinson’s Disease?
The process compared the effects of moderate and high-intensity exercise. More specifically, it studied the effects of a physical activity routine on the progression of disease symptoms. The researchers also examined how safe the exercise was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.
All participants had to exercise 3 times a day for 6 months
Participants were asked to exercise three times a week for a period of 6 months at either a moderate level (characterized by a maximum heart rate of 60-65%) or a high intensity (defined as a maximum heart rate of 80-85%). All participants exercised on a treadmill.
For consistency, the scientists also referenced a control group that did not engage in physical exercise.
After the program, all participants were assessed on a relevant scale from 0 to 108, measuring the severity of their symptoms. Higher scores indicated more severe manifestations of the disease.
What Did the Study Find After Just 6 Months?
Before the start of the trial, all had scored about 20. However, the results differed after the 6-month period, and the differences were dictated by the intensity of the participants’ workouts.
While participants engaged in high-intensity exercises continued to score about 20 on the symptom severity scale, those who had practiced moderate-intensity exercise showed worsened symptoms and scored 1.5 points higher.
Meanwhile, those who did not exercise scored three points higher, indicating an even more acute worsening of symptoms.
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High-Intensity Exercise More Effective
According to the researchers, the three-point difference suggests a significant disparity in terms of quality of life. Since high-intensity exercise appeared to keep the development of motor symptoms in check, physical activity requires further research as a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Corcos states:
We delayed the worsening of symptoms for 6 months, but whether we can prevent progression for more than 6 months requires further studies.
The high-intensity exercise was carried out safely through graded exercises supervised by cardiologists, who monitored how stressful the regime was for the participants’ hearts.
“Exercise is Medicine”
The researchers acknowledge that their study had some limitations, particularly the fact that the only type of exercise studied was treadmill training. This means that the potential benefits of other types of exercise remain unknown.
However, they emphasize that the high number of participants and the long period over which they were observed strengthen the validity of the results. Dr. Corcos explains that most studies on Parkinson’s have fewer participants and do not exceed 12 weeks.
We gave them [the participants] proper training, it’s not just a mild stretch,” he says. “This is high intensity, it’s part of the idea that exercise is medicine.
First Study on the Benefits of Physical Activity Considering Different Training Intensities
Existing studies had already found that exercise was beneficial for people with Parkinson’s disease, but this was the first time the effects of different intensities had been considered in research. Dr. Codrin Lungu, director of the program at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, comments:
Several lines of evidence indicate a beneficial effect of exercise in Parkinson’s disease. However, it’s not clear which type of exercise is most effective: the SPARX process seeks to rigorously address this issue, the results are interesting and justify further exploration of the optimal training regimes for Parkinson’s.
